


Carry Forward

by Rhinozilla



Series: Detroit 07 [22]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Adorable Connor, Connor Deserves Happiness, Cute, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Light Angst, Post-Peaceful Android Revolution (Detroit: Become Human), Sickfic, i don't know her, pacing? What is pacing?, soft fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 10:28:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19828261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhinozilla/pseuds/Rhinozilla
Summary: Connor visits his friend Bonny under less than ideal circumstances.





	Carry Forward

**Author's Note:**

> Most of you know the drill by now. It was in my brain, and I had to get it out, so now it's on your screens. I just had the urge to write something soft. That's my entire excuse for this.
> 
> Also, some of ya'll wanted more Bonny, so here's ya'll some more Bonny XD For those of you just tuning in, Bonny is an OC who was introduced in my fic "Bubbles" and mentioned in "Pen Pal Season." 
> 
> Enjoy!

The mid-afternoon had been dragging along at the station until the desk phone beside Connor’s terminal began to ring. It had startled him so much that Hank had actually laughed at his reaction. In the two years that Connor had worked at that desk, he couldn’t recall that phone ever ringing. Anyone who needed to get in touch with him just contacted him cybernetically or via his cellphone number, and his cellular line was routed through the same cybernetic connection.

The ID on the phone screen said the call was coming from reception.

Confused, Connor just stared at it as it rang again.

“Uh, you gonna answer that?” Hank asked, eyebrows raised in question.

Connor swiftly snatched up the phone from the cradle and frowned, staring at Hank as he held it to his ear. “Hello?”

Hank looked far too amused, and Connor frowned harder at him.

“Connor, I have someone on the other line asking to speak with you,” Polly, the receptionist android, informed cheerfully. “His name is Oliver Stevens. He says that he’s Bonny’s father?”

Connor sat up straighter, forgetting about Hank’s teasing. “What?”

“…I have someone on the other line—“ Polly began to repeat herself.

“No, I—I got that. Um, send him…through…I guess?” Connor cringed at how awkward he sounded.

There was a gentle pause on Polly’s end. “…Okie dokie, here he comes.”

There was a click, and Connor turned his chair a bit away from Hank’s curious eyes.

“Hello, this is Connor speaking,” he greeted.

“Hi, um…hello, sir, officer, my name is Oliver Stevens. I’m Bonny’s dad.” The man on the other end had a soft voice, stammering slightly.

Connor’s brows knit together in concern. “Hello, Mr. Stevens. How can I assist you? Is Bonny all right?”

“Yes…Yeah, she’s doing better now—“

Now? What did that mean?

His auditory units dove deeper into the layers of sound coming over the receiver. He picked up the ambient noise of other voices in the background speaking in clinical jargon and the sound of medical equipment. Bonny’s father was calling from inside a hospital.

Connor’s stress levels jumped from 5 to 34 percent.

“—but she wanted to speak with you. If you’re busy, we can call back later or—“

“No, it’s all right,” Connor interjected. “Has something happened?”

“She had her appendix removed yesterday,” Bonny’s father replied. “She’s doing well, but they are keeping her here for a few days for observation—“

Bonny’s voice cut into the background: “Dad, gimme the phone. I wanna tell him!”

Connor closed his eyes in relief at just hearing the little girl’s voice, and his stress levels immediately dropped to 12 percent.

“Shh, Bonny, chill out,” her dad reprimanded gently. “Sir? I’m sorry. I’m…I’m just going to pass the phone over. Is that all right?”

“Of course,” Connor assured, forcibly loosening his white knuckle grip on the phone. “Thank you for calling me.”

There was a shuffle of the phone changing hands, and then Bonny’s voice boomed over.

“Hi Connor!”

Her voice echoed out of the phone so loudly that Hank leaned his chair over into Connor’s line of sight, eyebrows climbing higher in curiosity. Connor waved a hand at him to leave him alone, turning his chair around further to try and get some privacy. Hank just snorted and got back to work.

“Bonny,” Connor smiled despite himself. “Are you all right?”

“I guess, but they won’t let me go home yet. They have to make sure I don’t pull any stitches and my guts don’t all fall out.” She sounded tired, despite her upbeat tone.

“I don’t believe that’s—“ he paused and tried again. “It is typical for a patient to remain in the hospital for a recovery period following surgery. Appendectomies are fairly simple and common procedures, so you should be allowed to go home in a few days.”

“Dad says I get to miss school for a couple weeks. Which sucks because my class is going to the aquarium next week and I’m gonna miss it,” she complained.

“You could go to the aquarium at a later time when you have recovered.”

“Yeah, but it won’t be the same…Hey, you should come visit me!”

Connor glanced at the clock. There were two hours left in his shift. His pause must have been too long, because when she spoke again, there was a desperate edge to her voice.

“Please?”

“Of course,” he immediately assured her. “If it’s all right with your father and your doctor for you to have visitors, then I would very much like to see you.”

“Yes!” Bonny cheered, followed by a hiss and a low “ow.”

Her father’s voice cut in. “Easy, BJ. Say goodbye and let me have the phone, okay?”

Bonny made an aggravated noise. “I gotta go, Connor. When are you gonna come see me?”

Connor winced, looking at the clock again. One hour and fifty seven minutes left in his shift.

“As soon as I can, I promise.”

“…Okay…You better…Bye, Connor.”

“Goodbye, Bonny. Get some rest,” he said, waiting as the phone changed hands again.

The background sound shifted to include more white noise. Connor deduced that the man had stepped outside his daughter’s room, away from her ears.

“Sir?” Mr. Stevens addressed him again. “I appreciate you taking the time to speak with her. She talks about you nonstop, and…I understand that you’re probably very busy. I didn’t know she was going to jump you like that…”

“It’s okay.” Connor said firmly. “If it is all right for her to have visitors, and if you are okay with it, then I would like to come see her.”

“Oh, that would just make her day. Thank you, yes, of course I’m okay with it.” Relief filled the hole of exhaustion in the man’s voice.

“When would be a convenient time?”

“Um…well, anytime really. We’re just…hanging out here.”

A set of car keys landed on the desk by Connor’s hand, and he looked down at them, then tracked their trajectory back to Hank. The other man was sitting back in his seat, arms folded and his eyes boring into Connor’s. He jerked his head toward the door. Connor blinked and slowly took up the keys.

“I still have two hours—“ he started to whisper to Hank.

“You got a sick kid wanting to see you. Screw two hours,” Hank grumbled back.

Connor looked at him incredulously and addressed Mr. Stevens again. “I am…just leaving my shift now…If I come directly to you, I will arrive in approximately twenty minutes. Is that acceptable?”

“Yes?” Mr. Stevens sounded surprised at the prompt time. “I’ll…let her know. Thank you. She’s going to be very excited.” He snorted. “Gonna be a trick to try and keep her calm.”

Connor fidgeted with the keys in one hand. “I will see you then. Goodbye, Mr. Stevens.”

“Yeah, okay, yeah. Oh, we’re in room 324. Um, goodbye, sir…officer…sir.”

Connor hung up the phone and set it back in the cradle, staring at it. Hank stared at him across the desk. A beat passed.

“That was Bonny’s father…” Connor started to explain.

Hank made a dismissive gesture. “I heard your side of the conversation; I got the gist of it. You can skedaddle out of here and go see her. You work enough overtime; Fowler won’t give you any shit.”

Connor tried to be subtle, but he could tell he stood up too fast and shut down his terminal too quickly to convince anyone, least of all Hank. He held out the keys toward Hank.

“I can take a taxi—“

“No, you’ll take my car. I’m stuck here for another four hours anyway. Just swing back by and get me when you’re done visiting her.”

Connor started to speak, paused, opened his mouth again, and kept the keys. “Thank you, Hank.”

“Yeah, yeah, now go!” Hank shooed him lazily toward the door.

..:--X--:..

Connor’s expected twenty minutes had been an overshoot. He had already parked the car and crossed through the front doors of the hospital at the ten minute mark. Humans leaving the hospital politely side stepped out of his way, and it was momentarily confusing, until he realized that he was wearing a standard DPD uniform with no android identifier markings. He must have been moving too quickly for them to register his LED, so they were treating him like a human by default. It gave him conflicting emotions, but he didn’t have time for that. He stowed it away for later, focusing on his current mission: Bonny.

Being so early was fortunate, as it turned out, as he spotted a gift shop right inside the front lobby, and a thought abruptly occurred to him.

It was customary for visitors to bring a gift to a child who was in the hospital. He had been so preoccupied with getting here that his programming had had to fight through a lot of emotional noise to notify him of this social protocol. He took a sharp right turn and walked quickly into the little shop.

The store was teeming with cards and balloons and small knick-knack figures and things that imparted comfort and consolation. Everything was stamped with get-well-soon’s and thinking-of-you’s and other such well wishes. Something about it all felt so stilted though. He made his way to a small section of stuffed animals and child appropriate gifts and stood in front of the options for a helpless moment.

From their back and forth pen pal letters over the past few months, the most recurring topics that Bonny had mentioned as her favorite things were the color green, bubbles, and monster movies. Suffice to say, the hospital gift shop did not sell monster movies, and he doubted that bubbles would be permitted inside patient rooms. He spotted a green mass in the bin of stuffed animals and gently sorted through the bin to excavate it.

It was a bright green lizard, stuffed with what felt like tiny beads, and the fabric had a slightly shiny quality to it, giving the effect of having scales. A red, forked tongue stuck out of its mouth, and it had big, bulging orange eyes sitting on top of its head. Its underbelly was white, and there was a darker green reptilian pattern stitched along its back.

Many monster movies used reptilian characteristics as a baseline for their giant, destructive creatures. Was this close enough? Would Bonny like this?

His internal clock reminded him that twenty minutes were almost up. He didn’t want to be late. It would have to do.

He purchased the stuffed lizard and a small green bag and tissue paper to wrap it in, and he made his way to room 324. More people navigated out of his path as he made a beeline toward the correct room number, and he had to consciously slow his pace as he approached the open door to the patient room.

Uncertainty locked his knees as he drew closer, and he came to a stop in the hallway.

A thick sense of intrusion painted the edges of his vision red, where the crumbling wall of restrictive programming had never entirely faded since going deviant. It was rare, but there were moments like this when it flickered at the far corners of his periphery: the old warning that this was not acceptable behavior for an android, that his presence here was not appropriate, that this was a private human matter and androids were not permitted into such spaces.

The involuntary, preprogrammed demand that he turn right around and leave was strong in that moment, but his window to do so abruptly closed as a man walked out of the room, looking up from his cellphone and locking eyes with Connor.

“Officer Connor?” the man asked, and his voice matched Oliver Stevens’s from their earlier phone conversation.

Oliver Stevens was a short man with boyish features, though Connor’s scan aged him at 32 years old. He had a wiry frame and the same mop of brown hair that Bonny had, though his eyes were different from hers. He smiled when he saw Connor, and it was similar to the toothy, cheeky smile that Bonny had beamed at Connor when he first met her.

“Mr. Stevens,” Connor greeted, forcing his legs to function as he approached the man.

“Oliver, please,” Oliver said warmly, extending a hand.

Social programming took over and had Connor moving his hand into Oliver’s grasp, giving him a firm shake. He had…never shaken a human’s hand before…an odd thing to find fascinating in this moment.

“It’s great to finally meet you,” Oliver was saying, taking his hand back and putting both hands on his hips. “Feels like I already know you after all that Bonny’s said about you.”

A warm, knotted feeling materialized in Connor’s chest, and he stared dumbly at the man.

“She…huh?”

“CONNNOORRR!” Bonny had spotted him from inside the room.

Oliver chuckled and stepped aside, holding out an arm to invite him in. Still utterly wrongfooted and unsure how to proceed, Connor helplessly walked past him and into the hospital room.

Bonny was the only patient in the small room, and the little girl was laying back in bed, wearing a mint-green hospital gown and her hair tied back in a braid down the center of her head. The color of the gown and the bedsheets washed out the color in her face, and despite the broad smile, her eyes looked tired.

A sudden feeling violently clawed its way through his chest as he looked at her, and Connor didn’t have to struggle to put a name to the feeling. He decidedly HATED the sight of someone he cared about in a hospital bed.

“Hi Bonny,” he said, in what he hoped was a light and friendly tone and not the horrified rasp that had locked up his vocal chords. “How are you feeling?”

“No better than half an hour ago,” Bonny whined, fiddling with the blanket in her lap. “I’m glad you came! I missed your dumb robot face!”

“Bonny!” Oliver tried to sound stern, but he couldn’t stifle a soft laugh. “That’s rude.”

Bonny rolled her eyes and looked pointedly at Connor.

He smirked and winked at her. “It’s all right. I’ve…missed your dumb human face.”

Bonny’s eyes lit up, and she cackled at his response. Her father sighed in resignation. Connor looked to him apologetically, but Oliver waved him off.

“I’m starting to get it now,” Oliver chuckled. “Hey, would it be all right if I stepped out for a minute? I’ve been here with her for…since yesterday, and…” He looked at Bonny directly. “I could use a break from her dumb human face too.”

“Daaad!” Bonny yowled with a short laugh.

“Sure, I’ll stay with her,” Connor nodded, happy to sit with the little girl so her father could have a reprieve.

“Thank you,” Oliver said sincerely, then pointed at Bonny. “Behave.” He looked back at Connor. “You can arrest her if she gets rowdy.”

“No!” Bonny crooned.

Oliver snickered and stepped out, closing the door after himself.

“Did you get me something?” Bonny was immediately honing in on the little green bag in Connor’s hand.

He started slightly but didn’t deny it. “Yes. My social programming indicated that it is customary to bring a gift for a child when visiting them in the hospital.”

“Huh…Wish humans had that programming. Ain’t nobody got me nothing, except Grandma. She gave me that.” She pointed over to the recliner, where a colorful book about science fiction had been set aside. She looked back at Connor and held out her hands expectantly. “Can I have it?”

Connor paused, then narrowed his eyes teasingly. “It might be more beneficial for you to rest now and open it later. I wouldn’t want you to overexert yourself.”

He made to set the bag on the table away from her bed, and she gasped dramatically.

“Oh, you suck!”

He snickered and relented, extending the bag toward her. “Of course you can have it now.”

“Yes!” she chirped, snatching the bag away from him.

He didn’t miss the way she uncomfortably laid back against the pillows, and he drew a little closer. He hadn’t been lying; he didn’t want her to overexert herself. Bonny slumped back bit, plucking the tissue paper out of the bag before diving one hand in, rummaging for the gift hidden inside. She tugged out the stuffed lizard, wrapped in a burrito of the colored paper. Connor fidgeted as she uncovered the soft toy, but his slowly rising anxiety was quickly swept aside when Bonny’s face split into a smile as she held up the lizard.

“Thank you! I love him!” She flopped the lizard side to side a bit, kneading her fingers into the soft beady guts of it. “Does he have a name?”

“I don’t…think so?”

“Then I’m gonna call him...Connor.”

“Please don’t.”

She giggled. “Okay, fine. Ferdinand then.”

Connor stared at her. He could not even begin to formulate where that name had come from, or why it was such an immediate second option. He decided not to question it, as he often decided not to question things when it came to children’s minds.

“Ferdinand,” she tried out the name, holding the lizard up in front of her.

“I’m glad you like it,” he said, stepping around the bed and sitting in one of the plastic chairs there.

Bonny relaxed a bit as he sat down, and she started to turn onto her side, grimaced, and eased onto her back again. She groaned, and her face pinched.

“Are you all right?” he asked. “Do you want your father or a nurse?”

“No,” she grumbled, folding Ferdinand against her chest with both arms. “I just want to go home, but they won’t let me.”

“You had surgery, Bonny. It is only in the interest of your health and recovery that they are keeping you here,” he said gently.

“It’s stupid,” she mumbled, moving one hand to gingerly touch her side near her bandaged incision. She looked over at him. “Do androids have appendixes?”

“No.” He shook his head. “The appendix is a vestigial organ that serves no purpose in modern human physiology. Androids do not have any such biocomponents that have no purpose.”

Bonny snorted and tried to move closer on the bed again, and was again thwarted by the soreness in her belly. Connor frowned and decided to save her the trouble. He scooted his chair closer, so that he could fold his arms on the edge of the bed. That seemed to placate her, as her restless fidgeting decreased considerably.

“What’s vastachio organs?” she asked, reclining her head tiredly on her pillow.

Connor smiled. “Vestigial,” he enunciated more slowly.

“Vestigial,” she repeated, arranging Ferdinand’s long body around her neck.

“It means that…a long time ago, that organ was very important and served a purpose in the human body, like your heart or your stomach does. But over the course of many generations of human evolution, the purpose that the organ served was eliminated. In time, this organ will be phased out of human anatomy entirely and people will begin to be born without them at all.”

“Like…like how some snakes still have hip bones?” Bonny asked.

“Yes. Did you learn that in school?”

“No…” Bonny fought against a yawn, moving Ferdinand to her shoulder so she could cushion her cheek against him and look at Connor. “I watch a lot of the science channel. Did you know dinosaurs had feathers?”

“I didn’t.” He could see her starting to fade, the events of the day finally beginning to wear on her. He softened his tone, hoping to let her drop off into much needed sleep. “Do you have a favorite dinosaur?”

“Hm…tricera...t-t-tops,” Bonny yawned, turning half lidded eyes on him. “You robots are lucky you don’t have to have surgery.”

“I never said I’ve never had surgery.”

Her eyes opened back to full at that admission. “You have? What for?”

Connor frowned. “I was…injured…in the line of duty and required repairs.”

“Was it bad?” She looked from one eye to the other, staring at him.

“It could have been worse,” he said carefully. “And fortunately I had someone there to help me until I had recovered.”

Bonny stared at him for a moment, then cobbled together a weak smile. “Did they follow the…uh…protocol and get you something?”

He snorted and shook his head. “No. There is no convention for giving androids gifts when they undergo repairs.”

Bonny dropped her eyes to her fingers, fidgeting with the blanket in her lap. “I woulda got you something.”

Connor momentarily stalled, unsure how to respond to that. The warm knot in his chest tightened and expanded, and he suddenly wished he’d bought her the entire inventory of stuffed lizard toys from that gift shop.

“You should rest,” he finally said. “The more you rest, the more you’ll recover, and the sooner you’ll get to go home.”

Bonny hummed, moving Ferdinand again, this time tucking the lizard against her side. “I guess…Are you gonna leave?”

“I can stay for a while,” he offered. “At least until your dad gets back. I won’t leave you alone.”

“Good,” she mumbled, eyelids getting heavy again. “I like…” she yawned, finally closing her eyes, “you and…dumb face…Connor.”

He grinned and patted her arm. “I like your dumb face too. Go to sleep.”

Bonny mercifully drifted off after that, and Connor quietly levered himself back, removing his arms from her bedside and sitting back in his chair. He looked toward the window, where waning afternoon light was lazily filtering through the curtains. The red edges of his vision had disappeared at some point during his visit, and realizing that helped him relax further.

..:--X--:..

Seven minutes passed in the comfortable quiet of the room before the knob on the door turned. Connor corrected his posture, having slipped into something of a slouch when speaking with Bonny, and prepared to assure Oliver that his daughter had been fine while he was away.

It wasn’t Oliver who stepped into the room, but an older woman with short blond-grey hair and green eyes that matched Bonny’s. A quick scan identified her as Carla Peyton, Bonny’s maternal grandmother. Carla took half a step into the room, eyes on her sleeping granddaughter, before she froze in place, her gaze finding Connor.

“Who are you?” she asked quickly, moving completely into the room.

“My name is Connor.” He stood slowly, giving her a full view of his police uniform. “I’m a friend of Bonny’s. Oliver called me.”

Carla gave him a onceover and slowly her suspicious posture began to loosen. That was…until she saw his LED.

“An android.” Her voice went sharp and cold, and her frame pulled her more upright to her full height. “Wait…Connor…You’re the…I know you.” She pointed accusingly at him. “You’re the android from TV…during the revolution…What are you doing here?”

Connor narrowed his eyes slightly, stepping away from the bedside and keeping his voice low and nonthreatening. “Oliver invited me to come visit Bonny.”

“Ugh, Oliver.” Carla’s lip curled, and she stepped closer to Bonny. “Well, you can go now. She’s asleep. I’ll watch her until he gets back.”

Connor didn’t move. “I’m sorry, but I promised her that I would stay until he returned.”

Carla looked affronted, and her hands made fists at her sides. “I gave you an order. How dare you—“

“Carla?” Oliver appeared in the doorway, pushing it open more fully. He looked from Carla, to Connor, to Bonny sleeping, and back to Carla. “I thought you were coming back tomorrow?”

“I thought that I’d come by today and surprise her…and I’m glad I did,” Carla rounded on Oliver. “You can’t just leave a child alone with one of these things. Especially deviants.” She sent Connor a venomous look before glaring back at Oliver. “They’re dangerous.”

Oliver lifted both hands to stop her. “Carla, that’s enough. I’m not having this conversation again.”

“When will this conversation be convenient for you, Oliver?” Carla spat. “When one of them attacks her? Because you keep insisting that these machines have souls—“

“Enough!” Oliver’s careful whispering turned into a hiss. “Not now.”

The red edges tinted Connor’s vision again, and he stepped away from the center of the room.

“My presence here is causing a disturbance,” he said quietly. “I’ll go. I promised Bonny that I would stay until you came back, and now that you’ve returned, I…I’ll leave.”

Oliver looked at him with a grimace, but Carla just gestured toward the door.

“I think that’s a good idea,” she tutted.

On the bed, Bonny mumbled and shifted a little, roused by the whispered argument. Carla immediately forgot about both Connor and Oliver, hurrying to Bonny’s side to comfort her. Connor actively backed out of the room, not wanting to let Bonny see him go. Better for her to wake up and him already be gone. He didn’t want to agitate her or get her worked up when she should be taking it easy.

He made it three steps into the hallway before Oliver was jogging after him.

“Connor, wait…”

“It’s all right.” Connor obediently stopped, turning and looking back at the human.

“It’s not all right,” Oliver argued, looking pained. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t think she was going to be visiting until tomorrow. She had no right to speak to you that way.”

Connor stared at him, perplexed. “Her reaction is nothing new to me. The majority of humans in this city still see androids as subservient machines. I’m used to it. To be honest…you and Bonny have been…a nice change of pace.”

Oliver heaved a sigh and looked briefly back at Bonny’s room before facing Connor again. “I’m still sorry. She’s…She’s been living in Detroit while my wife has been overseas…like she thinks I can’t—“ He shook his head, stopping his tangent.

While the man composed himself, Connor ran a search on Oliver Stevens’s wife and Bonny’s mother, Corporal Janet Stevens. She had been deployed to a military base in Egypt for the past six months. She still had several months to go before her tour was over. The search also showed where the Stevens had released their housekeeping android immediately after the revolution, even paying for transport and housing for the android’s first month of freedom until he could find his own way.

Carla Peyton’s anti-android stance, it seemed, was an outlier compared to the rest of this family. Connor drew some solace from that, and he looked to Oliver calmly.

“Thank you for letting me visit her. I think it did us both some good.”

Oliver finally seemed to relax a little, though his eyes were still dark with apology.

“Connor?” Bonny called out softly. “You goin’?”

Connor felt a clash of both agitation and relief when he heard that she had woken up. Agitation because it meant his clean getaway was ruined and her rest had been interrupted. Relief because, clean getaway be damned, he didn’t like the sneaky feeling of leaving without saying goodbye properly to the little girl.

So it took nothing at all for him to slip back into the room. Oliver lingered by the door, side-eying Carla as the older woman sourly relented her spot from Bonny’s bedside. Connor gave the woman a wide berth as he moved to Bonny’s side. He could feel Carla seething, but she had the decency not to resume her argument now that Bonny was awake.

“Yes, I’m leaving,” Connor replied belatedly.

Bonny appeared to be only half-awake, stubbornly blinking up at him and pouting her lips. “You have to? Just got here…”

Connor tilted his head, folding his hands behind his back. “You need to rest. Your father and grandmother are here to keep an eye on you now.”

“…Okay…gonna come back tomorrow?”

Connor flicked his eyes over at Oliver and Carla. He looked back at Bonny before he could catch either of the other two humans’ reactions. “We’ll see. Don’t worry about it. Just sleep and focus on healing.”

“…So stupid…” She pawed at Ferdinand, who’d disappeared under her side, digging him out and flopping the lizard up at her shoulder where she could cuddle him. “Hey.”

“Hm?” Connor leaned in a little.

Bonny lifted her hands up, reaching his arms and tugging him toward her. He awkwardly bent at the waist, letting her corral him into a clumsy hug. He carefully moved his hands around her shoulders in kind, reciprocating gently. She gave him a squeeze.

“I love you,” she chirped.

He stiffened in place, and she must have felt the sudden tension, because she squeezed him again.

“Dad says you’re supposed to say it every time you say goodbye, since you don’t know if you’ll get to say hello again,” she mumbled into his shoulder.

Connor paused, overriding the tension locking his joints, and he softly knocked the side of his head against hers.

“I love you too,” he said quietly. “And your dumb face.”

She giggled and finally let her arms drop, easing back onto the pillows. “You’re such a weirdo.”

He straightened up and gave her a wink. “Sleep well, Bonny.”

She hummed something unintelligible, succumbing to sleep again.

He silently backed toward the door, glancing to Oliver and Carla again. Carla’s arms remained folded tightly at her chest, her eyes tracking him as he went, but there was more suspicion than outright hatred in her gaze. Oliver offered a smile and a “I’ll call you” gesture with his hand at the side of his head. Connor nodded and finally left the room, leaving the human family unit to themselves again.

The red periphery was waiting for him outside as he left the hospital, and it burned at the corners of his eyes as he returned to Hank’s car. He sat stubbornly behind the wheel, trying to will the prickly, unwelcome feeling back into the recesses of his programming where it belonged. After a moment, the memory of Bonny’s tight hug surfaced, and it began to chase away the red vestigial tint.

For that brief time, he had been genuinely, truly wanted for no other reason than because a child had decided that he was her friend, and the residual wall had no power over him in that memory. He closed his eyes and replayed the memory file again. Within minutes, the red edges had completely faded again, he exhaled heavily in relief. He slowly pulled the car out of the parking lot and back onto the main street.


End file.
